You play Xenoverse to play as your OC Dragonball character. Everything you did was in service to that. It was a Dragonball game first and a fighter…actually it was a fighter 3rd, behind being an RPG.
Tenkaichi 2/3 is the height of simulation DBZ for me. Ignoring the items (and we did) there was decent depth in there, tho not truly attempting to balance canon levels (Yamcha can not beat Broly. Ever. Unless he throws).
Xenoverse is soooo much better than Tenkaichi. The “clones” are if anything more like EX versions seen in KOF games, with variations in movelists all around.
XV2 isn’t supposed to be a pure simulator like Tenkaichi. Its system was inspired by Zenkai Battle Royale which was made in the vein of the Gundam Vs series. If you’re treating it as such you’re not playing it correctly.
It’s worse than that, they’re empty cast wise because you have like, 10 characters that are actually good, and you need to be a much better player than whoever picks their Goku/Gohan Clone OC because they’re absolutely busted moveset, button and stat-wise compared to the regular cast.
Xenoverse’s balance is absolute garbage.
Gameplay isn’t even that good, you need stamina breaks to land anything and some Ultimates are still too slow to properly land because stamina recovers mid animation and you can wind up being able to vanish before the more damaging hits.
Story has all elements of bad fanfics. And I don’t even read those to know. It may be even worse than them.
I liked the controls though. Simple and intuitive. Easily the highlight of the game.
Xenoverse has plenty of actual fighting game tech, particularly Just Guarding and Red Focus, that can easily blow up any button masher you come across an ensure that the better player typically wins no matter what the matchup is.
Most of the “stronger” variants of characters typically have crappier movelists or moves that cost more meter than what is convenient for them compared to their less ki-demanding variants, or they have strings that are super-easy to parry.
As for combo breaking teleports, baiting it can be super-easy once you get used to it, especially with the addition of backturn moves in Xenoverse 2.